Considering how much a lot of hardware costs, I'm not sure how far you can complain about having to pay for a benchmark. IMO, they should start offering free copies with new hardware purchases. I believe Asus was doing that with their RoG mobos at one point.

I quite agree, those two resolutions are close enough that they can be compared. But I mentioned it because the 3DMark06 tests in this site's reviews are only done at default settings. Granted, it's the only settings most people have access to, but even 3DMark06 scores start to drop pretty quickly once you start adding eye candy. And virtually any bench will start to depend more on the CPU as the eye candy starts to disappear, whether it's synthetic or game-based.

No. Definately not. Never.I really hate 3dmark tests.They are pretty useless. 3dMark06 is heavily dependent on CPU. I saw a Quad at 4GHz and one 8800GT and the score still grow, but in games I hardly seen any difference with CPU at 3.2 and 4GHz.

I'd say to test the video cards in games. Many games. That's all that matter, because most of us are buying video card for gaming not for benching.

The Pro version with an ATI HD3870X2 shows between 7700 to about 9000 points from one test to another on the Performance setting.

Wow, I had not heard of that happening at all. For now I can only hope that it is all just driver issues, but at this point it would be hard to say. Although I have seen people get way better scores with the brand new drivers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdrom17

To be honest, I think it should be boycotted until it there's a free version that can be run continuously and be able to post on ORB. I believe HWBot is going this way and trying not to support it.

Let's start this with the above quote. I think this is the major issue MANY people will have with this since you will have to pony up the money for the right to run this benchmark more than once. Personally, I land in both camps since there are plenty of benchmarks that we have access to that are not available for free and are very good at comparing one product to another. At the same time I have a bit of an issue with having someone having to "pay to compare".

That is one thing that really bugs me as well. I mean I just don't see it becoming as widespread as 3DMark06 was without a true free version. I don't know that many people that are willing to "pay to compare" as SKYMTL said.

That said I would still like to see it included into the reviews but really hope that those discrepancies in the scores can be worked out.

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I am glad this is becoming a good discussion on the subject since this is becoming quite hotly debated.

While I know that 3DMark06 is CPU limited, you have to admit that it STILL shows the differences between graphics cards quite well even at default resolutions. Just look at any of the reviews we have done on the site: performance differences between single GPUs still stay pretty consistent. What will happen with the next round of uber cards is anyone's guess but I am guessing we will still not see the full effect of CPU bottlenecking. Many of you don't like 3dMark06 but I happen to like it to a certain extent since its scores are pretty consistent from one card to another.

I know many people come down into two camps; those of you who like the consistency of canned benchmarks and those who SWEAR by the true in-game benchmarking. That is why we do a little of both here. This is what I might do with the GPU reviews:

- Expand the 3DMark06 test by not including the Shader Mark scores and adding benchmarks at 1600x1200 and 2560x1600

- Add 3DMark Vantage test with the Performance & Entry tests for sub-$400 cards and Performance and High tests for over $400 cards

- Possibly add one more synthetic benchmark like Lightsmark or then OpenGL Fur rendering benchmark

- Add another in-game benchmark. I am not sure which one yet but I don't want one where I will have to go running around benching with FRAPS. I want repeatable tests so that means timedemo benching. Any ideas are welcome.

[QUOTE] Before we get into the testing procedure, we should quickly describe the whole "DX9 vs. DX10" controversy surrounding the game. Here's the gist of it: If you run the game in DX9 mode, you can only select "High" in each of the graphics configuration options. The "Very High" setting—the maximum for the game—is greyed out. If you run the game in DX10, you can go all the way to Very High. This produces more post-processing effects like motion blur and depth-of-field, better normal mapping and appearance of relief on the ground and objects, and more three-dimensional water.[/quote]

the game has very high demands on either os.. vista for dx10 or xp... has some nice eye candy and more realistic tests

Add another in-game benchmark. I am not sure which one yet but I don't want one where I will have to go running around benching with FRAPS. I want repeatable tests so that means timedemo benching. Any ideas are welcome.

How about WIC? It has a great built-in benchmark program.

3DMark Vantage just came out, give it some time, Im sure hotfixes will come soon. Futuremark is #1 for 3D benchers, period. This is the same discussion as when 06 came out.

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